A collection of my thoughts, muses and creative pursuits from the learning and education space! A serendipitous journey over technology and operations led me into learning and education and here I am on the cusp of my entrepreneurial journey.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Use your imagination

We
discussed this last week at a training session. The objective of the
session was to imagine any object as any other object and engage with
the object completely. So, I first picked a bench and imagined it to be a
bicycle. Then I picked up a bag and pretended it to be a book. And then
a steel tumbler as a phone and so on.

In
the discussion that ensued, the takeaway was not that, we believe that
the tumbler is a phone, but the fact as an actor one has to make the
audience believe that the tumbler is a phone. The actor who cries in a
crying scene is not as good as the actor who makes the audience cry in
the crying scene.

And
that led to the story that children find more joy in their imagination
than in an actual toy. The process of making the toy builds up the
imagination that is far more rewarding then mere ‘unboxing’. So, a
cardboard quiver made of cardboard, double sided tape, a satin ribbon is
far more fun than a plastic quiver. The cardboard quiver has
decorations, names, colour all customized to the childs liking (and not
an adults liking) and they are doubly proud of the fact that they made
it.

For
a child that imagination is the bigger part than the toy. Likewise, for
an actor on stage, one does far more with imagination (and making the
audience believe in that imagination) than with actual props.